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The festival was cute. Nice little distraction for all of us who got dropped here out of nowhere.

We’re stuck here and have to get used to it. Sure. But who knows the best place to check out fresh foods and spices? I need samples. May as well be eating whatever they give me blindfolded until I know what’s in it. They could be feeding us alien donkey balls for all we know.

Just because we’re stuck in another world doesn’t mean we have to eat like heathens.

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Home is wherever you're at right then. Right now, we're here. Indefinitely. Why bother working yourself up about how long the stay is? You're here. Gotta deal with it.

[He can speak from experience. He's been stuck in quite a few towns he didn't like and had to bear until he could move on.]

Not saying you need to start planning a family and a 401k but you need to like where you live or things are gonna be real unpleasant for you.

[Firmly-] No. Home is where your friends are. Your friends, your family, the people your heart cherishes the most.

[Also, adds "401K" to the list of things to search for in the dictionary.]

I don't care if things are unpleasant for me. I have to-...

[But he cuts himself off there, reining in the outburst with some effort. It really won't help anything, one way or another, to get more and more worked up about this.]

Isn't there anyone you're missing? Anyone you'd like to get back to?

I move around a lot, so this isn't any different for me than back home. [A small lie. He had a life he was enjoying, about to get a promotion at his job and he'd been angry that he may have had to leave it all behind, but the choice had been taking from him so he was dealing with it. Dealing with shitty situations was normal for him.]

You can make "friends" wherever you go. It's not that big of a deal. [Not if you consider friends to be decent people you work with or can hang with and aren't too heartbroken when you leave them behind.]

Right...

[Terra has to admit defeat. Moving around, making new friends, he gets all that, but he can't imagine not having closer friends. The kind you'd stick with for life. The kind you'd give your life to protect.

The kind you can't stand to think about being in danger while you're "stuck" on a moon world.

... Well, everybody's different, after all.

With a sigh, he switches to what seems to be this guy's preferred subject.]

I don't know much about food... And it seems like you've gotten a lot of suggestions on where to go to shop, but I'd recommend walking the streets and asking around that way, too. If you haven't already. You can find out some interesting secrets that way.

[That's the kind of life that Tolemi would never truly be able to understand. It's bred out of the very culture of his people. They have to be willing to let go, to move on, keep yourself vague and easily forgettable so that people won't ask too many questions, won't look deeper. The idea of anything being permanent or even of wanting that is just too far removed. Too human, to him, in a way he's completely cool not being.]

Thanks for the suggestion. The people hanging around the markets always have a lot of nice family recipes they don't mind sharing tips from.

I bet. I've seen a few small gardens here and there, too. If you have any interest in growing your own stuff. That'd be about as fresh as it gets. But more work, of course.

[There's a pause because Tolemi puts some thought into that advice.] It'd be shitty of me to start a garden if I only end up here for a few months, but renting some plot from a local garden if they've got the space isn't a bad idea.

Makes sense to me. I guess you like cooking, huh?

[That or the guy's a picky eater.]

Enough to make a profession out of it. I'm good with ingredients and a time limit. But even if I wasn't I like knowing what goes into what I'm eating. [He's paranoid that way.]

Oh. You're like a... [What's the word for it again... Searches his sheltered guy vocabulary...] A chef?

Yeah, you could call me that. [Because he is. He may not have a fancy certificate of the culinary arts, but he's not modest about his skills.] But like I said, even if I wasn't, I'd want to know what goes into what I'm eating.

They're really bringing all kinds of people here. [Just an absent mumble, that. (He doesn't know the half of it.)]

I doubt they're feeding us anything... too strange. [Maybe he's trying to think the best of people, maybe he's trying not to think about people eating anything that ever dangled between the legs of a male animal.]

But nothing wrong with wanting to be certain. I'm pretty sure a lot of the food at the festival was just sugar. Sugar on top of sugar.

[Hey, bull penis is considered a delicacy all over the world. Just because he ain't eating it doesn't mean he'll knock anyone else for it as long as they aren't too stupid to know it. Then he'll mock them all he damn pleases.]

Sugar on top of sugar on top of some kind of natural aphrodisiac probably. As for the kind of people...well, we're all aliens in one way or another. Better get used to it.

[Bull penis is also a dog chew, but some dogs do go nuts over it.

+1 dictionary list, "aphrodisiac". That one will give him something to think about.]

It won't take much getting used to for me. I've... [- traveled the worlds -] met a lot of different people before. [And was taught from an early age that the worlds are filled with people of all shapes, sizes, and species.

Once you can take two talking chipmunks completely seriously, you're pretty much good to go.]

I just wondered... when I first got here, I mean, I wondered if they were only bringing in people who could fight. For their Guard. But it's much more than that. There are people with all sorts of skills coming through that portal.

Considering how many people are around, we can't all be fighters. It goes against probability. I'm no fighter.

[Technically speaking. Kickboxing and mma training doesn't stand up against actual soldiers, he'd think, even if he is willing to punch people he doesn't like in the face.]

Yeah, that's true. I just didn't understand the nature of this place at first. I thought most of the people here were... from here, born to families who had only ever been here.

[Now he knows better. Strange, strange moon world, casually defying the World Order on such a large scale.]

You're no fighter... and I'm no chef. The name's Terra, by the way.

Call me Tolemi. This place is doing a lot for shaking up the way we look at things.

[Which is both good and bad and weird because he's far too used to assuming everyone could potentially be a threat to coming to a world where no one really cares enough to be one.]

Yes, it is.

[That's a very dangerous thing when it involves worlds. Or so he was raised to believe.]

It's been nice talking to you, Tolemi. [Even if there are some things they don't agree on.] But I should probably go for now. I've got a lot of work to do... Earning my way out and all.

Guess I could say the same. I need to hit some of these shops. I'll see ya when I see ya.

[There are talking instead of seeing each other face to face, but it's a habit. A way he used to get out of saying goodbye.]

I hope you find what you're looking for.

[Hey, that totally works to wrap up conversations without having to drag the awful word that is 'goodbye' into things.]

See you.

[And he's off.]

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